A combo made October 10, 2017 of file photos taken on December 09, 2016 in Washington, shows Rainer Weiss (left), Barry Barish (second from left) and Kip Thorne, who won the Nobel Physics Prize 2017 for gravitational waves, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced October 10, 2017 in Stockholm.

US astrophysicists Barry Barish, Kip Thorne and Rainer Weiss won the Nobel Physics Prize on Thursday for their discovery of gravitational waves, the Nobel jury said.

Predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago as part of his theory of general relativity but only first detected in 2015, gravitational waves are 'ripples' in the fabric of space-time caused by violent processes in the Universe, such as colliding black holes or the collapse of stellar cores.

"Their discovery shook the world," said Goran K Hansson, the head of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. (AFP)